[SOLVED] Completely random crashes

[FPS Scotland]

So, my PC has started doing completely random crashes, and they vary each time. Previously it only happened whilst playing games, but now it's happening just when browsing chrome

Sometimes, the screen goes black, but it doesn't freeze. If I'm in a discord call, I can still talk and be heard. The only way to fix it is to manually power cycle the PC.
Sometimes, it just restarts randomly, but boots up fine.

However, sometimes, once restarted, it defaults to windows basic display driver. I have 2 screens, and windows only recognises one in settings, but duplicates my output to both monitors. I fix it by manually downloading and installing AMD graphics drivers. I must've downloaded and installed the same drivers at least 10 times by now. I've also tried rolling back to a few older drivers but it still happens.

I have absolutely no idea where to even start troubleshooting this issue. Any advice?

Specs:
i5 6600
Asus Z170 Pro Gaming Motherboard
16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM
AMD RX 570
EVGA 650w PSU

Update: So it crashed again, except this time it didn't boot. Normally when I turn my PC on the PSU fan maxes out until it posts and calms down, but this time the fan just stayed mad and it didn't post. I unplugged and replugged the motherboard power cable and it appears to be working now, so I'm hoping the crashes are fixed, but unsure until it happens again.

 

[Aeacus]

I have absolutely no idea where to even start troubleshooting this issue. Any advice?

On hardware level, 2 suspects: GPU or PSU.

What is your EVGA 650W unit model?

GPU wise, it may be dying GPU, since one of the symptoms indicates that (display reverting to Win graphic driver).

---

On software level, conflicting program and/or bad driver.

When you've reinstalled GPU drivers, you uninstalled old drivers with DDU, right?

 

[FPS Scotland]

On hardware level, 2 suspects: GPU or PSU.

What is your EVGA 650W unit model?

GPU wise, it may be dying GPU, since one of the symptoms indicates that (display reverting to Win graphic driver).

---

On software level, conflicting program and/or bad driver.

When you've reinstalled GPU drivers, you uninstalled old drivers with DDU, right?

When installing drivers, AMD has an option for a fresh install that removes all older ones, so I use that.

My PSU is an EVGA 650GQ

 

[Aeacus]

GQ is a good unit and it lessens the suspicion on PSU. Though, even good PSUs can go bad, so, PSU isn't completely out of the woods, yet.
To rule out PSU issue, you have to use 2nd, good and known to work PSU and see if you get same symptoms. If you do, it's not the PSU. If you don't, it most likely is PSU issue (since you only switched PSUs to test it).

GPU wise, you can test it easily. Just remove your Radeon from the system and plug the monitor to MoBo. i5-6600 has iGPU that you can use. Since you get crashes even when browsing, iGPU is enough to do that. You can't game on iGPU though (only, maybe some light games).

"Fresh install" removes the user profiles and doesn't keep the custom settings. It still leaves something behind, hence why there's DDU.
Also, it has happened where latest GPU driver doesn't want to work nicely. In this case, rolling GPU drivers version or two back helps.

If there is some other software conflict, i don't know where to look. But the best fix would be clean Win reinstall. That removes any software issues you have, until you install the drivers/games/other software back. Oh, Win reinstall may make you loose your personal data, depending on where it is.

I'd do the 4 in such order:

• GPU driver rollback
• GPU out of the system, try with iGPU
• Win reinstall
• New PSU

Since new PSU costs money, it can be the last thing to do.